If Fuad El-Hibri’s vision is accurate, a next-generation anthrax vaccine isn’t due for, well, another generation.

The outgoing Emergent BioSolutions Inc. chief is bullish on the federal government’s continued demand for the company’s anthrax prevention measure, BioThrax, and somewhat bearish on the timeline for its replacement.

While Rockville-based Emergent and its chief competitor, Annapolis-based PharmAthene Inc., are in roughly equivalent stages of development for such a vaccine, El-Hibri doesn’t expect anyone to produce a viable alternative to BioThrax for a decade, if at all.

That prediction suits Emergent well. Already one of the region’s most successful biotechs, the company pulled in $270 million in revenue last year, much of it from the sale of BioThrax to federal agencies. It has sold more than 55 million doses of the vaccine, and El-Hibri estimates the federal government’s current stockpile is still well short of the 75 million doses required to inoculate the population of three large cities.

“We have a ways to go,” he said.

What remains unclear is whether Emergent’s feverish efforts to develop additional revenue streams will pay off. BioThrax remains its bread and butter for the near term.

The conundrum leaves essentially two different companies in El-Hibri’s wake. One: Emergent the biodefense contractor with its unassailable vaccine monopoly. The other: Emergent the speculative early-stage drug developer, looking to tap commercial markets in oncology and autoimmune disorders even though its most advanced candidate was recently abandoned by a pharmaceutical partner. The great question facing Emergent is which of those two images will come to define the company post El-Hibri.

The CEO will end his 14-year tenure on April 1, staying on as executive chairman, a change for which he has been positioning Emergent for years. El-Hibri plans to still oversee board activities, advise on growth — especially acquisitions — and continue working in external relations, including with Emergent’s political action committee.

As of March 25, 2011, El-Hibri owned nearly a third of the company’s outstanding shares, mostly through other business entities he also partly owns, according to Emergent’s most recent proxy statement. He said he does not plan on registering as a lobbyist.

President and Chief Operating Officer Daniel Abdun-Nabi, who will replace El-Hibri as chief executive, has taken on an increasingly visible role in recent months, but that doesn’t make the change any less profound. El-Hibri, more of an investor and businessman than a scientist, built a contracting powerhouse — until 2004, known as BioPort Corp. — out of the assets of an old state-owned vaccine lab in Lansing, Mich.

In that time, he has presided over and chaired a privately held telecommunications startup and a venture capital and business consulting firm. His Emergent tenure spanned the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the anthrax mailings and two wars.

In BioThrax, the only federally licensed anthrax vaccine in roughly 40 years, Emergent has an unquestionable advantage over new market entrants. But those competitors — PharmAthene chief among them — are looking toward the next-generation anthrax countermeasure as a way to knock Emergent from its perch.

While Emergent’s own next-gen candidate “looks very promising,” El-Hibri is quick to dial back expectations for the recombinant protective antigen (rPA) vaccine — essentially a purified, single-protein upgrade of BioThrax.

“Other than purity, there’s really no advancement in terms of the vaccine to justify calling it ‘next generation,’” he said. “That aside, I think it would take eight to 10 years, if it will ever be licensed.”

The two big questions facing the rPA anthrax vaccine are efficacy and stability compared with the current product. The federal government will need to decide whether it wants to stockpile a new vaccine with potentially less favorable shelf life and temperature stability than BioThrax, said Gregory Wade, an analyst with Wedbush Securities Inc. who covers Emergent. BioThrax has a federally mandated shelf life of four years.

“I think rPA is a long way away,” Wade said.

PharmAthene’s rPA vaccine, SparVax, is in Phase 2 clinical trials, as is Emergent’s candidate, PreviThrax, which it acquired from California rival VaxGen Inc. in 2008. Both companies have won major contracts from the Department of Health and Human Services to develop their rPA products.

El-Hibri sees Emergent not only expanding its commercial portfolio but also venturing into new areas of biodefense contracting. The company plans to increase its focus on antimicrobials and radiation, “two areas that aren’t quite as well-developed” as the top-tier bioterrorism agents, he said. Both could be the impetus for acquisitions, and El-Hibri suggests the company could look for buyout targets with existing federal contracts.

Emergent last year formally split into two divisions — biodefense and bioscience. For the latter entity, oncology and autoimmune disorders remain the focus, driven by the 2010 acquisition of Seattle-based Trubion Pharmaceuticals Inc. But Emergent was dealt a significant blow in early January when Abbott Laboratories, its partner in co-developing the leading candidate from that acquisition, TRU-016, spiked the agreement for undisclosed reasons. Emergent plans to bootstrap TRU-016, a cancer drug, and possibly seek another pharmaceutical deal for it.

El-Hibri expects upcoming acquisitions to “go a little deeper” into the same areas.

“You may see an acquisition of a company or a lead product that would complement the Trubion portfolio,” he said.

Abbott’s departure will force Emergent to shift resources into its own pipeline. The company has been consistently profitable, last year posting earnings of $20 million to $24 million, according to preliminary results released Jan. 9. Its stock, at $17, slipped from a 52-week high of $26.41, but still towers over local publicly traded biotech peers.

But as Emergent pushes its drug candidates into more advanced trials, El-Hibri cautions that it might have to dip into red ink.

“We need to be financially strong to continue to be a reliable supplier to the U.S. government, that is our highest priority,” he said. “There might be a point where we have several candidates in Phase 2 or Phase 3 development which require funding, where we might not be able for that particular year to sustain profitability.”